"Happy the first of men, ere yet confin'd To smoky cities." Already the voice is that of Obermann, of René, of Byron. Another point in which the recommendations of the Wartons far outran the mediocrity of their execution was their theory of description. To comprehend the state of mind in which such pieces of stately verse as Parnell's _Hermit_ or Addison's _Campaign_ could be regarded as satisfactory in the setting of their descriptive ornament we must realise the aim which those poets put before them. Nothing was to be mentioned by its technical--or even by its exact name; no clear picture was to be raised before the inner eye; nothing was to be left definite or vivid. We shall make a very great mistake if we suppose this conventional vagueness to have been accidental, and a still greater if we attribute it to a lack of cleverness. When Pope referred to the sudden advent of a heavy shower at a funeral in these terms-- "'Tis done, and nature's various charms decay; See gloomy clouds obscure the cheerful day! Now hung with pearls the dropping trees appear, Their faded honours scatter'd on her bier," it was not because he had not the skill to come into closer touch with reality, but that he did not wish to do so. It had been plainly laid down by Malherbe and confirmed by Boileau that objects should be named in general, not in precise terms. We are really, in studying the descriptive parts of the Classicist poets, very close to the theories of Mallarmé and the Symbolists which occupied us twenty years ago. The object of the poet was not to present a vivid picture to the reader, but to start in him a state of mind. We must recollect, in considering what may seem to us the sterility and stiffness of the English poets from 1660 to 1740, that they were addressing a public which, after the irregular violence and anarchical fancy of the middle of the seventeenth century, had begun to yearn for regularity, common sense, and a moderation in relative variety. The simplest ideas should be chosen, and should depend for their poetical effect, not upon a redundant and gorgeous ornament, but solely upon elegance of language. There were certain references, certain channels of imagery, which were purely symbolical, and these could be defended only on the understanding that they produced on the mind of the reader, instantly and without effort, the illustrative effect required. For instance, with all these neo-classicists, the mythological allusions, which seem vapid and ridiculous to us, were simplified metaphor and a question of style. In short, it rested the jaded imagination of Europe, after Gongora and Marini, Donne and D'Aubigné, to sink back on a poetry which had taken a vow to remain scrupulous, elegant, and selected.